Wazara v Principal, Belvedere technical teachers college and anor

Mr Biti for the applicant

– The rules of a teacher training college provided that a student who is pregnant during her course

would be required to withdraw from the course. The applicant a married woman, had become

pregnant during the the last year of her course.She had given birth about a month before she

was due to write her final examinations. Five days before she was due to write her examinations

she was expelled because of her pregnancy. She applied to the court to have her expulsion set

aside and to be allowed to write her final examinations.

– held , that at that time the expulsion had occurred s 23 of the constitution did not prohibit

discrimination on the grounds of sex or gender and therefore the explosion of the applicant could

not be impinged on the basis that was ultra vires the constitution. However s 23 was

subsequently amended to incorporate a prohibition against discrimination on the grounds of

gender.

– held however that the rule upon which the college based its expulsion required that a student

must be pregnant when she was withdrawn from the course. By the time that the college

decided to act in this matter the applicant had already given birth and was no longer pregnant.

the purported expulsion was therefore invalid and the applicant was entitled to be given the

chance to write the examinations that she had been prevented from writing due to her expulsion.